The Return of Monte Cristo (1946) DVD-R

Starring Louis Hayward, Barbara Britton, George Macready, Una O'Connor,
Henry Stephenson
Directed by Henry Leviin

Print: black/white
Runtime: 80 min.
Genre: drama
Print Quality: B

Louis Hayward, star of 1940's Son of Monte Cristo, returns to Alexandre
Dumas territory in Columbia's Return of Monte Cristo. This time, Hayward
plays the grandson of his namesake Edmond Dantes, who, it will be
recalled, was cheated out of his fortune and falsely imprisoned, only to
escape and wreak vengeance on his betrayers by assuming the guise of
the Count of Monte Cristo. Just like grandpa, the younger Dantes is
framed by a trio of connivers and shipped off to Devil's Island. Escaping
with a fellow convict, political radical Bombelles (Steven Geray), Dantes
adopts the bearded guise of an elderly man in order to destroy his
enemies and reclaim his birthright. One of his principal antagonists — at
least during the first half of the film — is haughty aristocrat Angele Picard
(Barbara Britton), who because she wasn't a part of the original
conspiracy genuinely believes that Dantes is a criminal (This is the sort of
pre-Political Correctness film in which the hero robs and ties up the
heroine, but she falls in love with him anyway). After orchestrating the
ruin of two of his tormentors, Dantes settles accounts with main villain
Henri de la Roche (George Macready) in a darkened theater, a climax that
invokes memories of Rafael Sabatini's Scaramouche.